The Boxster – 986 Series (1st Generation)

986
Harm Lagaay’s Boxster design study stimulated a commercial turnaround for Porsche after several difficult years of falling sales.

The visual appearance of the first generation of the Boxster was heavily inspired by the Porsche Spyder and Speedster as well as the Porsche 550 Spyder. The Boxster was released ahead of its big brother, the 996. Through consultation with Toyota, Porsche greatly decreased the cost of manufacture, and introduced large-scale sharing of components between its models. The 986 Boxster had the same bonnet, front wings, and distinctive ‘fried-egg’ headlight units as the 996. Its original 2.5L M96 engine shared the same architecture with the 3.4L engine used in the 996. Many believe the combination of the new Boxster / 911 styling and the reduced build costs through component sharing saved Porsche from being acquired by another car company.

All 986/987 Boxsters use the M96 water cooled, horizontally opposed (”flat”), six-cylinder engine. The M96 is the first completely water-cooled engine used in a production non-front-engined Porsche. In the Boxster the M96 is placed in a mid-engine configuration as opposed to the rear-engine placement in all 911s. The combination of the M96 and a mid-engine layout provide a low center of gravity, smoothness throughout the rev range, near perfect weight distribution, and neutral handling characteristics. Early production M96 engines had a small but significant number of engine failures due to cracked or slipped cylinder liners, but since a minor redesign in 2000 these problems have been resolved.

The model received a minor facelift in 2003. The plastic rear window was replaced by glass. Porsche installed a different exhaust pipe and modified air intake. In addition, the often disliked orange “fried egg” front indicators were replaced with clear glass indicators, and the rear light cluster was changed, with orange turn signals replaced with clear grey. The side marker lights on the front wings were changed from orange to clear, except on American market cars, where they remained orange. The bumpers were also changed slightly for a more defined, chiselled appearance, and new wheel designs were made available.

550 Spyder 50th Anniversary Edition
In 2004 the 550 Spyder 50th Anniversary Edition was released, with a production run of just 1953 cars. These were all painted GT Silver Metallic, the same color as the car-show version of the Carrera GT supercar, and had unique, cocoa-brown, full-leather interior as standard, with grey natural leather as a no-cost option. Each car also had special interior paintwork, a high-end BOSE sound system, two-tone grey and silver 18″ Carrera wheels (unpainted as another zero-cost option), 5 mm (0.2 in) wheel spacers, the Boxster S sport exhaust, the 030 option lower sports suspension, and a plate on the center console piece commonly known as the “batwing” showing the production number. On American market cars only, the rear turn signals were red rather than clear.